Many may make fun of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s failed military experiments (and his hair), but what the media usually focuses on is the over 24 million people that live in the country, and what they think of it.
Vice tagged along for a motorbike expedition through the single party-run country, seeing the (admittedly pretty) sights along the way, and taking in all of the stories too.
It’s one of the most insightful incursions into the state by outsiders, and proof of its importance are the excessive security measures the New Zealand-based crew is put through as it tries to gain entry into the country, from Russia , as well as the permanent escort that never strays from the set path – they see what they are meant to see, and no more.
A lot was probably edited out in the end, but what you have below is a 16-minute cultural and social lesson that is hard to come by nowadays, both because of the logistical problems facing such a trip and the reticence towards sharing details about the inner workings, in a country where even close relatives of the leader can be accused, trialed and killed at a moment’s notice if they in some way are thought of as a threat to the regime.
Scroll down and check it out.
By Andrei Nedelea
